


Gansey's Greatest Idea

by shitboxsingalong



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Camping, Drunkenness, F/M, Gansey is an idiot, Glitter, M/M, Or should I say Glamping?, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-23
Updated: 2015-04-23
Packaged: 2018-03-25 08:45:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,242
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3804127
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shitboxsingalong/pseuds/shitboxsingalong
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Gansey makes everyone go backpacking in the Wilderness, and it kinda falls apart</p>
            </blockquote>





	Gansey's Greatest Idea

After many dedicated hours of thoughtful speech writing, Gansey’s charisma and preparation won the posse over. “A backpacking trip,” Gansey presented his well thought out idea for the sixth time (or so it seemed), “On the ley line, of course, to continue searching for caves Glendower being our priority.” Gansey continued his speech for several more minutes, his words brimming with importance. Noah had disappeared, Adam, Ronan, and Blue ceased to listen. Without any realization, they had suddenly signed up for a three day backpacking trip in rural Virginia.  
The backpacking trip as of Gansey’s planning, was set for the following weekend. As this outing meant the world to Gansey, Adam had rearranged his work schedule in order to be bitten by bugs, sunburnt, and rot away in filth. Blue followed suit.   
-  
Ronan had thought the trip to be bullshit, and had not believed this rich, pretty-boy, this Richard Campbell Gansey the III, was actually making them go backpacking. But alas, the day of departure arrived and Gansey, being Gansey, was enthusiastic as ever.”Ronan and Jane, divide the snacks evenly! Adam, get the water filter filter and maps!” Gansey ordered, looking down at his messily written list.  
“Fine J. Crew. But I’m taking extra Clif bars.” Blue answered, though she realized it wasn’t a time to be a smartass.   
As Ronan and Blue stockpiled the snacks in their own bags, Gansey finished his gear check, okaying everything only after a thorough search, marking off things on his list as packs were being stacked in the back of his suburban. With a last look around the Monmouth Manufacturing lot, the crew squeezed themselves into Gansey’s bigger car and away they drove into the glorious spring afternoon, a perfect Friday. ‘Stupid Noah!’ Gansey thought, ‘Refusing to come with us! He doesn’t realize what he’ll miss!’, mentally scoffing at Noah’s disobedience.  
-  
They started on the trail a quarter till five. Gansey’s relationship with both perfection and anxiety had brought them ahead of schedule. Adam whipped out a map of the area, a desolate patch of wilderness that surrounded them. His brilliant eyes scanned the laminated, oversized paper until he found the pink line, their trail. Tracing it, he explained their route to Blue and Ronan. “Therefore, we must hike three miles today,” Adam pointed to an illustration of a pink tent located on the map, “To get here!” He finished.  
“Three whole miles!? Are you fucking with us, Parrish!?” A high pitched squeak escaped Ronan’s voicebox, the statement oozing with sarcasm. Adam began to open his mouth, most likely to respond with logic and great reason, however, saw it to be for the better as to not reply. ‘Don’t fight with Ronan’ , he reminded himself, his inner train of thought focusing on that, ‘Don’t fight with him.’ Blue merely shrugged, and, while struggling under the weight of her pack as she hoisted it onto her shoulders, trying to find her center of gravity, stalked over to Gansey, who was applying his useful, rich-boy and I can handle this ‘cause I work out strength to unload the unending amount of gear.  
Adam’s gaze fell on Blue and Gansey, who were simply unloading stuff, yet their eye contact said so much more, and their happiness in each other's presence was uncontrollable. He let out a great sigh, full of sadness, and found his eyes on Ronan. he sighed again, wishing…longing for his own happiness. Adam Parrish had longed for a happiness a time to long to recount.  
-  
Hiking was surprisingly easy for the rich kids. They even had the energy to chat. Small talk was exchanged back and forth, the retelling of stupid stories ever present. Tramping through the woods at a solid pace, running on adrenaline, neither did realized the early stages of dehydration set in, nor how parched their throats were. The gang stumbled into camp with forty-five minutes of daylight to spare. Blue took an energy bar out of her pocket, devoured it, and in looking for water to wash the stickiness down, found none. She called out to the rest of the group, just wanting water, a drop of fucking water. As if Blue’s request were a que, the other three noticed their own dried tongues, and quickly searched their own bags. Without luck, Blue, Adam, and Ronan turned towards Gansey, looks of disbelief, anger, and tiredness plastered to their faces. “You checked over the gear how many times?!” Blue began, the stern and annoyed tone in her voice was not new, though Gansey was shocked - this voice had never been used on him! “And we DON'T have water?! Honestly, your parents should be ashamed of themselves and of you! You decide to go camping and forget to bring WATER!”  
Gansey had only been camping once, quite a few years ago, yet he knew he should have remember the water. A battle raged within his head. ‘Wow. This is fucking great! You’re in deep shit this time! Your friends could die! What would you do then? Find new friends? How would you tell their families? there would be no Ronan or Adam or Blue? What would you do without them? Gansey, double bad!’   
“I got it!” He spat out, the charismatic ego so many knew was back. “I remember packing a bottle of iodine and a water filter. Adam, they are in your bag?” Adam bent over to search his bag, and Ronan took the opportunity to check Adam out. Gansey’s observant eyes were unamused, however, ignored it. Dick continued his rambling about water filtration. “Remember the stream we passed? We just need the filtration devices and to trek back to the stream! We won’t die out here! I promise! Adam, you found the filter, I trust?” Adam nodded in reply. “Okay. You and Ronan back track. Cell phones don’t work in the backcountry, so stay together. Take this collapsible pot, top up with water, treat the water, and come back. Jane and I shall set up camp in your absence.”  
“Sure.”  
“Gansey, remember, DON’T knock Jane up!” Ronan called out, his smirk audible through the sarcastic chuckle that followed. Adam, trailed by Ronan made his way down the trail towards the creek. Blue and Gansey looked on as they departed, flushed and standing awkwardly apart from one another. A laugh, timed a moment too late, embraced the awkwardity of the situation, escaped Gansey’s lips.  
“Sooooooo…… how’s life, Parrish?” Ronan asked too casually to actually want an answer or to be serious. Why was talking to Adam Parrish so hard, so fucking hard? Talking to the late fuckboy Kavinsky had not been this hard, a casual conversation with Dick the III wasn’t difficult, even chit chatting with the freaky, psychic maggot did not drain him.  
But Ronan knew why conversing with Parrish took so much of his energy. He would have to be an idiot not to realize it. No one’s stupid face made Ronan’s want to smile more than Adam’s. Ronan knew he would be content if he could put this boy’s voice on a CD and listen to it for hours on end. The way he talked in that Henrietta way, so syrupy it reminded Ronan of mango vodka. And the scent of gasoline that lingered after he came from work. Fuck work. A little bit of him exploded every time he was around Trailer Trash. And Ronan hated it or hated himself, for letting Adam’s presence rule his life.  
“Lynch, are you okay?” Adam asked. A small laugh followed. Though the question had lacked sincerity, Ronan felt a tug on his throat. They were approaching the creek. A few paces later, they were upon the stream. Ronan and Adam both knelt on the bank, trying to make sense of the stupid filter and stupid iodine. They handled every piece of equipment with great care, knowing that Rich Boy could get new shit with a clap-clap of his hands.   
As the water streamed from the filter into the collapsible cooking pot Gansey had managed to remember, Adam and Ronan sat in silence. Not an awkward silence, but more of a calming and unbreakable silence, as both were happy to sit there, without a word to the other.   
-  
A raindrop fell through the clouds and the sky to find and make contact with Ronan’s freshly shaved head.With a great crash of thunder, their silence was broken. Buckets upon buckets of water hurled towards the earth. Adam grabbed the iodine and filter, Ronan swiped the collapsible pot of drinkable water, and they ran a direction, believing this was the way to Blue and Gansey and food. It had been hard to tell between the torrential downpour, decreasing light, and the dark shadows of looming trees.   
Many factors, the growing darkness, the incredible shadows found in the forest the inability to see through the rain, perhaps fate itself, had led the boy’s away from the tarps, energy bars, dehydrated stew, and the lovebirds. Within a few minutes, they were lost. Extremely lost in the Virginian wilderness.   
-  
Realizing their surroundings were unfamiliar only after considerable time, Adam decided, there, to rebel against his normally pessimistic demeanor. An ingenious idea, for both Ronan and Adam had pessimistically based personalities, and they had to survive this backpacking trip. This motherfucking backpacking trip. Good moods struggled as they tried to find shelter, a suitable shelter, for that matter.   
Cursing each other, Gansey, and the world, they came to a small cave, not big enough for Glendower, yet big enough for two teenage bodies. Miniscule and dark, cold and solid rock, they found themselves thankful neither was claustrophobic nor afraid of the dark. Thunder was going to be a different hurdle.  
-  
Blue and Gansey had set up camp when the storm had made the dramatic entrance. Now, both sat on their sleeping bags, chomping on energy bars. Ronan and Adam had been gone for a while almost an hour. Where were those little shits? Gansey’s stomach was devoured by the pit of guilt, sitting like a rock, becoming bigger and bigger with every passing second. It had been his fault, after all. He had been the one who to forget the water.  
“They’ll be okay.” Blue said, the level of worry apparent in her voice was surprising. ‘After all, it is Lynch and Parrish.” She added with a note of sad humor. Blue’s hand found the middle of Gansey’s back, and she rubbed reassuring circles to calm him.   
Gansey’s face body, and mind relaxed. He felt that now, now it might be okay. His head fell on Blue’s shoulder. And they stayed like that for a long time.  
-  
Soaked, pissed, and fatigued, Ronan crawled into that small cave. Adam crawled in behind him. Thunder clapped and lightning lit the sky up. Ronan was on the verge of peaceful sleep. Growing up at the Barns, it the atmosphere he had, Ronan had a strong fondness of thunderstorms. The smell of moist earth reminded him of home and of the long ago childhood he had experienced.  
-  
Meanwhile, at Monmouth…   
Noah was partying it up. in the time he had been alive, he had preferred getting high on life.By being dead now, none of the ill effects could plague him. He could have fun getting drunk, getting high, and not have to worry about alcohol poisoning or cocaine addiction. Fun had no collateral damage. Why not?  
There Noah was, five shots of tequila, half a bottle of wine, one of those beers from the fridge, combined in his stomach. He was hammered. Glitter covered the floor, an ancient disco ball hung from the ceiling. Noah couldn’t remember finding that sad country music, but it was playing. He threw one last handful of glitter into the air, and watched as it collided with the floor. With glitter in his hair, Noah slumped to the bed and drifted into dreamless slumber.  
-  
It was cold inside that cave. Really fucking cold.The apartment St. Agnes was warmer. They were soaked to the bone, and that improve their situation either. Under the impression that Ronan was asleep, Adam inched towards his body heat. Ronan had been on the threshold of sleep but as Adam moved closer, Ronan’s senses were reawakened. He couldn’t go to sleep now. Not with Adam Parrish this close to him. Ronan didn’t move. How could he? Staying as still as possible, keeping his breathing even, he waited. Adam moved closer, trying to warm, his small body more susceptible to hypothermia than Ronan’s. With Adam’s hot breath on his neck, Ronan tried to drift to sleep. Ronan almost fell asleep several times within the next hour, only to be woken up by Adam's whimpers whenever thunder could be heard overhead. Thunder seemed to give Adam nightmares. Ronan suspected it had to do with Robert Parrish, that fucking bastard, and Robert pounding on Adam's locked door as Adam tried to escape the drunken beatings from his father. Ronan stroked Adam's soft hair in hopes relieving the stressful nightmares. Finally, Ronan fell asleep, a feat accomplished only after Adam’s irregular breathing became more regular so it lulled him to sleep.   
-  
Gansey and Blue, after an hour and a half, decided that Lynch and Parrish would be okay. As tired as their other half had been, they set out another one of Gansey’s collapsible cooking pots to catch rainwater, and climbed into their individual sleeping bags. Everything was going to be okay-ish.

**Author's Note:**

> This is the first fic I've ever written, so bear with me.  
> Sorry.


End file.
